Wires, tubes, and other various long and at least somewhat flexible items are often disposed within protective conduits to prevent damage to them and/or to prevent harm to others via inadvertent contact with the items. However, the wires and tubes possess an inherent rigidity which, together with friction, usually impedes the process of drawing them through the conduit. In such cases a lead, such as a more flexible rope or a ribbon tape etc., may first be fed through the conduit to the waiting wires and/or tubes. The lead is then fastened to a leading end of the wires/tubes and the lead is pulled back to its entry point. Oftentimes the resistance of the threading operation exceeds an amount of force a person would be able to exert to complete the threading operation manually. As a result various tools have been developed to aid the person in the threading process. However, many of these tools, for example, wenches, are complex, heavy, in some cases expensive, and require a minimum amount of operating space. In addition, in many cases a winch may be more suited for heavy duty pulling when only a relatively moderate amount of pulling force is actually needed. It is common for heavy duty pullers to operate at a relatively slow speed to effect the high forces needed, and in the construction industry speed is often a paramount consideration. Consequently there remains room in the art for improvement.